GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

An uncredited author gives the familiar folktale a modern country setting and comes down hard on Goldilocks’s character flaws. Wright lightens the tone by furnishing the bear family’s cozy cabin in the woods with a sampler reading, “Everything’s Better With Bacon On It,” and a bookshelf endowed with the likes of 101 Recipes for Park Rangers and Hikers and How To Surprise ’Em—which sends a message rather at odds with the bears’ stated benevolence. Sandwiched between jovial opening and closing jingles, Tillis reads the tale on an enclosed CD, with help from several voices and an occasional musical riff on “Achy Breaky Heart” or some other country standard. Despite the illustrator’s best efforts, however, the net result is bland and commercialized. In the simultaneously published Emperor’s New Clothes (ISBN: 0-525-47152-9), Vince Gill speed-mumbles his way through a likewise uncredited remake, in which the “Emperor” is a business executive with a taste for Western wear. Dispensable. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)